SUMMER’S BACCHANAL.
———
BY J. BAYARD TAYLOR.
———
Fill the cup from some secretest fountain,
Under granite ledges, deep and low,
Where the crystal vintage of the mountain
Runs in foam from dazzling fields of snow!
Some lost stream, that in a woodland hollow
Coils, to sleep its weariness away,
Hid from prying stars, that fain would follow,
In the emerald glooms of hemlock spray.
Fill, dear friend, a goblet cool and sparkling
As the sunlight of October morns—
Not for us the crimson wave, that darkling
Stains the lips of olden drinking-horns!
We will quaff, beneath the noontide glowing,
Draughts of nectar, sweet as faery dew;
Couched on ferny banks, where light airs blowing,
Shake the leaves between us and the blue.
We will pledge, in breathless, long libation,
All we have been, or have sworn to be—
Fame, and Joy, and Love’s dear adoration—
Summer’s lusty bacchanals are we!
Fill again, and let our goblets, clashing,
Stir the feathery ripples on the brim:
Let the light, within their bosoms flashing,
Leap like youth to every idle limb!
Round the white roots of the fragrant lily
And the mossy hazels, purple-stained,
Once the music of these waters chilly
Gave return for all the sweetness drained.
How that rare, delicious, woodland flavor
Mocked my palate in the fever hours,
When I pined for springs of coolest savor,
As the burning Earth for thunder-showers!
In the wave, that through my maddened dreaming
Flowed to cheat me, fill the cups again!
Drink, dear friend, to life which is not seeming—
Fresh as this to manhood’s heart and brain!
Fill, fill high! and while our goblets, ringing,
Shine with vintage of the mountain-snow,
Youth’s bright Fountain, clear and blithely springing.
Brims our souls to endless overflow!
THE PLANTATION OF GENERAL TAYLOR.
[SEE ENGRAVING.]
We present our readers this month with the first of a series of views which, by permission, we have caused to be engraved expressly for this Magazine, from Mr. John R. Smith’s celebrated Panorama of the Mississippi River. It represents the cotton plantation belonging to the recently elected President of the U. S., General Zachary Taylor. It is situated on the eastern branch of the Mississippi River, in Jefferson county, Mississippi, seven miles below the town of Rodney, between the estates of James Suggett, on the north, and Colonel Barker, on the south. The view embraces the overseer’s house, the cottages of the laborers, with a small portion of the broad acres which are comprised in the plantation. The spot is interesting, not only as being the property and the occasional residence of a distinguished public man, but as affording a specimen of those cotton estates, the culture of which exerts so important an influence on the commercial and financial destinies of the republic.
Plantation of General Taylor